With A
by museicality
Summary: Written for SMACKDOWN 2011, Team Puppy Love. A Prompt challenge: Clary and Mattes have many adventures, and all of them happen "with a..."
1. Fish

Title: Fish  
>Rating: PG<br>Word Count: 192

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With a fish." Because it was bound to happen and Mattes isn't perfect.<p>

"Did you see where he went?" Clary shouted to Mattes across the rooftop. The wind picked up her voice and carried it away, but Mattes shook his head.

"Looks like 'e jumped, sarden looby."

Clary threw her leg over the wall and began climbing down the ladder to the street below. "Well?" she asked archly, when Mattes paused, half leaning over the edge of the roof.

"Think I see where he tossed his knife, the stupid scut," Mattes explained hurriedly, scrambling down the ladder around Clary.

"Really now?" Clary, interest piqued, jumped the last few feet to the ground. "Where'd it go, then?"

Mattes plunged his arm into a barrel to one side of the alley.

"Ugh, smells awful, like a cesspit," he groaned before holding his hand up triumphantly.

"Got it!"

Clary bit her lip and tried not to giggle. "Really, Mattes?"

Held in his clenched fist was a pickled fish. Mattes made a noise of disgust and dropped the thing, then made as if to rub his hands on his trousers, remembering just in time that the slime covering them would then be with him all night.

"Alright, maybe not."


	2. Boat

Title: Boat  
>Rating: PG<br>Word Count: 158

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With a boat." He can't help it if he gets seasick.<p>

"After him!" Clary yelled, growling in frustration as their Rat put on a new burst of speed and pulled ahead, dodging through the boxes lining the docks.

Mattes grunted and threw himself forward, faster and faster, until the footsteps ahead of him cut off.

Skidding to a halt, he found his toes lined up on the edge of the dock; in front of him, disappearing into deep fog, a boat lifted anchor and a figure scrambled across the deck.

Clary ran up, then bent double, her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath.

"Where'd that sarden scut get to?" she asked raggedly, and Mattes tried to see the ship again, pointing into the descending night.

"He jumped; 's on a boat now."

"So lets find one ourselves," Clary decided. "He's too close to just let 'im get away."

Mattes shook his head firmly. "Nuh-uh."

Clary's gaze was measured. "…Mattes, are you afraid of sailing?"


	3. Kiss

Title: Kiss  
>Rating: PG<br>Word Count: 250

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With a kiss." Maybe it pays to pay attention to old wives tales.<p>

Mattes always thought it was an old wives' tale, only one in a number that his mother told on cold nights.

In her stories, there were women who could kill with a single kiss, one small touch of the lips and a devil's smile.

Mattes listened to the tales because they had adventure and glory; kissing was for - and sissies, and he wasn't one of those.

He would always choose adventure over kissing.

He believed this right up until he got to Corus, and was promptly accosted by a gaggle of flower girls in the lower district looking for a 'spot of fun'.

None of their kisses smoldered like in his mother's tales, so he figured they must be safe.

Then, he decided he could have kissing whilst he adventured, joining the Provost's Guard, though only running after Rats made any part of him (his lungs and legs) burn.

This lasted until he was reassigned, again, to one Clara Goodwin, because apparently his other partner couldn't keep her eyes to herself. Rumor had it that that problem wouldn't be one he'd have with Clary.

He believed that one right up until her burning eyes locked with his one evening after a close call in a tavern brawl, and her kiss scorched him right down to his toes.

Clary Goodwin wasn't safe, not at all.

Mattes supposed this was him having adventures whilst kissing, and he liked it well enough. Apparently Clary was the woman all the tales warned about.


	4. Grin

Title: Grin  
>Rating: PG<br>Word Count: 224

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With a grin." Mattes is a total and complete looby.<p>

_A/N: I would love to get some feedback about my writing; if you read my work, please review and let me know! Even a simple response is appreciated! Thank you _

Mattes is a total and complete looby when it comes to serious things, Clary realizes not too long into their partnership. Not Dog-serious things; other serious things. She's never felt safer than with him at her back in a tight spot, with his footsteps pacing next to hers, his eyes scanning the streets every night.

For Dog-serious things, Matthias Tunstall is all she could want.

For everything else though, Mattes is quite hopeless.

His eyes laugh at her when she inhales too quickly and powdered sugar off of one of Mistress Noll's apple pastries gets up her nose, keeping her coughing [s]and swearing the air blue[/s] for the rest of Night Watch.

His hands catch her when she yawns deep enough to go cross-eyed in the early morning when they leave the Kennel and meander down Jane Street before retiring, each to their own homes.

His mouth quirks up, first in a hint of a smile, as if he were making fun of her, and then into a full blown grin when she loses her temper over sommat silly and insignificant, and Mithros curse him he never realizes how she would do anything for that grin.

Mattes is a total and complete looby when it comes to serious things, Clary realizes, especially things like how she lov—

Has a deep, unchanging [i]fondness[/i] for him.


	5. Hammer

Title: Hammer  
>Rating: PG<br>Word Count: 116

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With a hammer." She told him to duck.<p>

_A/N: I would love to get some feedback about my writing; if you read my work, please review and let me know! Even a simple response is appreciated! Thank you _

"I told you to duck!"

"—ugh, not so loud, Clary, m'head hurts."

"Well, of course it hurts you sarden looby, you got a good crack 'bout it!"

"'thought you said "duck", 'n there aren't any birds 'round here."

"Matthias Tunstall, were you always a bugnob and I didn't notice or are you hurt worse'n I think?"

"Dunno, Clary, what'd you notice 'bout me afore?"

"And now he's got flirting eyes and roving hands, Mother bless it all!"

"Wha, Clary, don't you like me?... ah, you're red, so you do—"

"Clearly, you were hit harder than you thought."

"But you're worried about me, right?"

"Worried I'm 'bout to smack you over the head again, Mattes!"


	6. Needle

Title: Needle  
>Rating: PG<br>Word Count: 160

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With a needle." Clary goes domestic and Mattes faints in shock.<p>

"Ouch!"

"If you would just hold still, Matthias you big baby, it wouldn't hurt as much."

Clary dipped the cloth back into the bowl of warm water to her right before dabbing at the wound on Mattes' arm.

"Honestly, for a cove so big as you, you can be such a looby over a little cut."

Mattes grimaced. "It stings, Clary, I can't help it."

"A full grown man, a Dog, and he can't handle a weenie scratch," Clary mocked. "Hold still, this is going to need stitching."

"Didn't know you could do something so domestic," Mattes ribbed in return, and Clary knotted the end of the thread with a flourish.

"Just for that, my lad, I'll make sure to poke you," she mumbled, tongue between her teeth.

She didn't get further than the first stitch when Mattes made an odd, high croaking sound and slumped over.

"Fainting?" Clary asked incredulously. "Oh, you'll never hear the end of this one…"


	7. Rope

Title: Rope  
>Rating: PG<br>Word Count: 197

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With a rope." Mattes waits for the opportune moment.<p>

"Mattes!" Clary shouted, ducking as a chair flew over her head where she had been standing moments earlier. "Damn you sarden loobies," she screeched at the Rats she had cornered in the old workhouse by the docks.

"Matthias Tunstall, you get your sarden bum down here NOW!"

No familiar solid footsteps came in her direction, and Clary was forced to throw up her baton again, blocking the wooden stave that one of the Rats had found lying around. Her foot curled up to strike him solidly in the gut, throwing him back against his partner, and she abandoned them to turn and swing at the third before he could run forward.

"Mattes—"

Clary's words were cut off as the sound of rustling fabric came from above her head, drawing her attention up just as a black shape dropped from the rafters. She hit the floor as Mattes, clinging to a rope, swung over her and slammed heels-first into the last Rat.

"You called?" Mattes asked gallantly, releasing the rope and offering her a hand up.

"Never," she gasped, catching her breath and unsure of whether or not to laugh at her partner, "do that again."


	8. Poetic Justice

Title: Poetic Justice  
>Rating: PG<br>Word Count: 116

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With a tankard." Poetic justice does nothing for the taste.<p>

Bar fights start and end rather quickly on their own, and this one was no exception, not counting how he and Clary had been just a tad instrumental in the ending part of the fight. The dust slowly settled in the Barrel's Bottom, and Mattes grimaced slightly at the amount of damage done the furniture.

"…you just substituted your baton with a tankard of ale…" Clary pointed out slowly, holding said weapon out for him to replace at his hip.

"It's something like poetic justice," Mattes pointed out, still holding the tankard, which surprisingly still had ale in it. He sniffed the brew before tasting it carefully.

"Poetic justice doesn't make it taste any better, though."


	9. Fork

Title: Fork  
>Rating: G<br>Word Count: 139

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With a fork." He just needs one, okay?<p>

"What do you need a fork for?"

Clary frowned at Mattes. It was an odd request, especially at the Kennel; couldn't he just go down the street and get something that he didn't need a fork to eat?

"I just do, ok? Do you have one?"

Clary gave him another odd look, then looked around her shelf of things. "Here, you looby. Make sure you bring it back, alright?"

Mattes left whistling. "Don't I always, Clary?"

The fork was back on her desk when Clary returned later, and she never did get the chance to ask Mattes why he needed it.

She figured she might have found the answer, when that night she heard Little telling Tom all about the lunch that Unca Mattes made her—food like he eats in the hill country, Da!—on Mattes' day off.


	10. Flowers

Title: Flowers  
>Rating: G<br>Word Count: 136

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With a flower." Clary loathes all things bright and beautiful.<p>

Mattes knew that Clary didn't like flowers; she always turned down her lips at the flower sellers carts and skirted her way around them.

Apparently, it wasn't particularly "Dog-like" to appreciate flowers or in any way acknowledge their existence, especially not whilst on duty, so Mattes kept himself between Clary and the evil flower vendors (and his precious, beloved roses).

He laughed at the face Clary made when Tom left flowers for her on her birthday, and he wondered why she had never told her husband about her apparent loathing of all things bright and beautiful.

"It's the thought that counts," she announces snippily, but an hour later, when her face is red and puffy and she's sneezing so hard she's crying, Mattes calls her on her bluff and puts the flowers on the bench outside.


	11. Wink

Title: Wink  
>Rating: G<br>Word Count: 139

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With a wink." Mattes the Ladykiller.<p>

He winks, and the mots fall all over themselves to fawn over him, Clary teases Mattes when she's in a good mood. Night Watch is going smoothly, and Mattes has some attention to spare for the ladies, who smile slyly back at him.

He winks, and Clary's got him by the ear, dragging him off down the road.

"Not even a full five minutes on duty and the looby's checking out the ladies like some kind of randy rusher!"

He responds that she must just be jealous, wanting him to pay all his attention to her…ye gods, the woman has a strong pinch!


	12. Accomplice

Title: Accomplice  
>Rating: G<br>Word Count: 183

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With an accomplice." This makes him an accomplice, right?<p>

x.

"So, this makes me an accomplice, right?"

Mattes is much too excited about this prospect, so Clary feels it necessary to bring him down a few notches.

"Really, Mattes?"

"What?"

Clary rolls her eyes and shifts her grip, reaching for a better handhold with which to hoist herself higher. "You're not an accomplice, Mattes, you're just supposedly giving me a hand."

Mattes looked around himself. "Are we, or are we not currently climbing up the side of a building?"

Clary counted to ten for patience. It didn't seem to help; maybe she counted too fast?

"Yes, Mattes."

Mattes reached for another outcropping with his right hand, and brought himself up so his face was level with Clary's. "Is it, or is it not our goal, upon reaching that open window, to enter the building?"

Clary, had she an available hand, would have punched Mattes in the arm right about then.

"Matthias Tunstall, you looby, we're climbing up the wall of _my house_ because I locked myself out. We're not criminals, and you are not my accomplice."

"Technically, though, it's still breaking and entering."


	13. Mirror

Title: Mirror  
>Rating: G<br>Word Count: 150

Pairing: Clary/Mattes  
>RoundFight: 3/A  
>Summary: "With a mirror." Clary never uses mirrors, except for Dog work.<p>

AN: I just want to take this opportunity to thank my readers; as you may have noticed, the majority of my work on ffnet is very, very short, or consisting of very short chapters. This is caused by the fact that these fic were written for Goldenlake's SMACKDOWN challenge last year, and time was of the essence! In the future, I'll be uploading fic that is longer, so thank you for reading all these short drabbles and keep an eye out :) ~Muse

x.

Clary is the ideal Dog, Mattes thinks—constantly on alert, thinking on her feet, duty bound…

His mind skips over the part about how good she looks in her uniform; black definitely works for her…

…And then he can't stop from returning to the thought.

It's not that she pays attention to her appearance, either; unlike so many other mots, Clary isn't fussy or particular, and everything she wears, she wears for practicality's sake.

It's not her fault that she can make short hair look so good.

Because of all these things, the evening he comes in for duty and sees her looking in a mirror at herself (and not the people behind her, a trick she does sometimes, but the angle's all wrong) Mattes is confused.

The next morning explains things quite a bit when one Tom Goodwin arrives to take Clary's hand and take her out to breakfast.


End file.
